Month: February 2022

My thirst is a tribute to the river. My ardent thirst beckons me to the river from which I have come. I long to be absorbed once again in that vast river out of which I have emerged. I thirst to return.

I was born with the natural desire to return to the river that flows through all things. Culture has cloaked that ardent desire, made it hidden and contained. Diversions such as possessing, fear and hoarding have dulled my expression of longing and desire. The thirst has been thwarted by my cultural accommodations.

I am slowly learning to thirst and return to give tribute to the river of existence. I am gradually unlearning much of what I have so passively been taught. I am ignoring the conceptual limits of a learned reality.

My natural thirst is for the ultimate, for the surging river that flows through all things including me. I feel the pulsing flow of the erotic energy that rises in the whole world in which I live. My thirst is becoming free and it grows.

I put aside the constraints that limit my vision and my reach. I ignore the limits that seem to exist all around me. I carry a cup in my expectant hand as I prepare to take deep drinks from the flow of energy all around me. My thirst is becoming greater, and the flow rises to satisfy my desire.

I draw closer and closer to the source of my arising. My thirst gives tribute to the river of my origin. I will be possessed by it and fully enlivened.

Mindfulness or Intimacy?

I gave this talk at Blooming Heart Sangha on 2/16/2022

I invite you into a question I’ve been asking myself:

• It actually is kind of a retraction; certainly a clarification
• In October, I talked about Mindfulness and Intimacy as though they were somehow the same.
• I even said they were two sides of the same coin.
• Now I’m not so sure.    
• Lori often reminds us “Are you sure” and now I’m not at all sure I agree with what I said in October.
• I think something like a real distinction can be made between mindfulness and intimacy.
• I often think and talk about these things and I’ve lived a few months and I notice that my experience has changed.

It’s not a two-way street;   I think I can be mindful without experiencing intimacy.

• I can’t experience intimacy without being mindful.
• I realize these are just words, concepts; they are not a thing.
• This is more than a simple distinction of words; I think the two words point to a qualitative difference in experience.
• Intimacy is not just experience of more mindfulness, it is qualitatively different.

I know this is my distinction, my choice of definition.

• It is not what Ben Connelly seems to say. In “Mindfulness and Intimacy”
• It is my experience
• It’s an important distinction, because it says “there is something more than mindfulness.”  
• Old saying: “ First there is a mountain; then there is no mountain; then there is.”
• Mindfulness and intimacy are at the opposite ends of that saying.
• The opposite ends of the saying also reflect a difference in experience, and I know I am clearly not at the ultimate end of the intimacy…..not yet.
• It is a continuum, and my experience is somewhere along it.  

Problem: I often talk with an English major friend of mine about how language is essentially dualistic.

• That is a problem.
• For me to talk about Mindfulness or Intimacy, I use dualistic speech, dualistic terms.
• But intimacy experience moves beyond dualism, beyond dualistic speech, beyond concepts.   
• Your language in describing your experience likely has a different meaning than mine;
• Mine will be different in four months.
• But we have to use words to talk about it, and here goes……

 First, Mindfulness; For me, Mindfulness is less juicy, but focuses on some aspect of experience

• Usually means being aware of some aspect of experience I am not typically conscious of.
• Mindfulness is a first step; typically focuses, brings my consciousness to some kind of sensory or mental experience.   
• Mindfulness is foundational; Thay says it is an antidote to many things such as suffering, anger, loneliness.

For me, Body is foundational for most experiences of mindfulness.

• Mindfulness often rises from sensation.   Clapping hands to feel the tingling energy.
• Mindfulness can be focusing on breathing, sitting, walking, eating, and so on.   
• Body scan is a help in becoming familiar with mindfulness.
• For me, there is a point when I become aware of my whole body at once; ready to step over into intimacy.

Second, intimacy; That movement into intimacy is harder to describe

• Mindfulness is like watching rain run down the window pane; intimacy is running out into the rain, putting whole self into the experience.
• Intimacy is beyond knowing about something, but meeting it with an open heart, an open mind, a sense of wonder
• I know, I can be mindful of the granite top in my bathroom:  its hardness, its coolness, its 200 million years in the ground.
• Intimacy is merging with the granite without being aware of any of those things.   A step beyond dualism, beyond concepts.   It simply is and I am connected to it.
• “First there is a mountain…….”

I have a harder time launching into intimacy with the shungite stone around my neck.

• It is a great exercise in mindfulness.   I often focus on its 2 billion years in the ground; I feel its hardness and sharp edges, its black shiny surface. 
• But I have a hard time feeling any kind of intimacy with it
• Perhaps not enough sensory data to launch me.
• Since I began thinking about this, the sense of intimacy has grown. 

What about senses:  Intimacy involves and depends on a launch beyond sensory

• For me, it includes abandonment of sensation;
• Requires that I go beyond the conventional, beyond habitual views.
• An experience that may reach toward the ultimate.   …..still thinking about that.
• I know it demands a surrender to a feeling of free-fall, absolute letting go
• That is beyond mindfulness.

What About people: Mindfulness can be independent of other people, but other people often play a huge role in intimacy for me.

• Families teach a lot about intimacy; certainly true for me 
• for some that means learning that intimacy is inviting and juicy; for others that means learning that intimacy is a scary and dangerous place……it is better remaining alone.   I got a lot of the latter.
• Lovers are often associated with thoughts of intimacy, and they too can teach the dangers or the wonders of intimacy.  I’ve experienced both.
• I am still thinking about ancestors and wonder what you think: how have they affected your ability to experience intimacy?

Last thought; I am convinced that I can be mindful without intimacy, but I cannot be intimate without mindfulness.  However there are things I’m trying to figure out

• Intimacy is beginning to seem something like absorption to me, but I’m not sure.
• For me it is a kind of boundary-less merging
• Experiencing no distinction.
• Not the same as possessing; I think there is nothing that involves self.
• Something like a small taste of nibbana, emptiness
• “First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is”
• That is about as close I get to understanding intimacy.

I still have more questions; but I also have some for you:

• What do you think intimacy is?
• Is it part of mindfulness or different and distinct?
• What is your experience of intimacy”
• What has been the role of family, ancestors for you?

What I see and what I write is only the beginning. I can tell that the Goddess is gently nudging her way into my life. She has been doing this for many years as the feminine has called to me in sometimes subtle and sometimes striking ways. What I am waking to is mostly inside of me, but it is encouraged by the feminine all around me.

It could be that what I have been calling the feminine leanings in me and in the world are actually the energy and power of the Goddess. The two are one, feminine and Goddess. My culture has largely declared that the sacred and divine is male. The sacred and divine are separate, somewhere unseen, unheard and ‘out there.’ While I have been convinced of the immanence of the sacred, I am mainly recognizing the feminine attributes of that immanence. The Goddess has stirred from beneath the covers of my male-dominated, male-god dominated culture.

Actually, the Goddess has been there all the time, sounding the sweet harp of her presence. She has appeared to me in so many art forms and in many of the women I know. My own natural affinity for the feminine has in reality been an affinity for the Goddess, for the manifestations of her wise, life-giving fecundity of her sacred presence.

It is a continuing revelation as veils are drawn back. I am noticing the feminine attributes of the deep and erotic energy that is present in all things. No separate entity, the Goddess alive is in the whole world around me. She is more obvious in some places, but she is present in everything, everyone willing to manifest her.

I am learning not only how to recognize her but also how to express her power and energy, her attributes and her presence. I am fortunate to have teachers who are around me and who speak to me in art and books. I am fortunate to have a garden where the Goddess is alive and manifests an alluring presence. I am fortunate that I can feel the Goddess coming more alive in me.

Around me, there is a circle of engagement. It follows me around. Sometimes it grows in size, sometimes it shrinks. I suspect its size has something to do with my mood. More likely, it reflects and is affected by how present I am to myself and my surroundings.

The circle of engagement also depends on the intention of the world around me. My sense of presence engages only with willing participants. For the inanimate world, their intention to be present is simply a given. The rocks, the hills, the wet waves are all totally inclined to be part of my engagement circle.

Plants and animals are perhaps more passive, but each in its own way is available to be engaged. I need to lean more actively to the plants in my garden, but they casually accept my presence with radiance. They present in such a manner that they are somewhat easy to welcome into the circle of engagement.

Animals are more wary. Only the more boldly brave are willing to join me in feeling the kind of engagement I might offer. Perhaps it is the times that I present more of a passive presence that they are more willing to be engaged with me. I sometimes think they can sense my calmness and are less wary of joining my presence.

Humans are an even more challenging dance of engagement. As I grow older in confidence and the sense of my own presence, I am more expressive in how I invite other humans into active engagement. Sometimes I even use words that make it clear that I am inviting someone into my circle. Other times it is much more subtle. Always, the invitation is coming from my own sense of being present.

I am aware that my focused eyes or a smile is usually an invitation to someone to enter into my circle. Sometimes the invitation is more obvious in the form of a touch or a hug. Always it is my presence reaching out and saying “Join me.” The circle is open, but never broken by coming and going.

I am aware that in all instances, the binding connection with the other, with others, is already present. What remains to be done is experience the reality that exists. What remains is to feel the connection, to experience the circle of engagement that I naturally have.

That is my intention, to experience being deeply intimate with the world around me. It is my intention to experience the intimacy that I already have with all that is. That involves being very aware of every thing and every one that enters my circle of engagement. It also involves my openly inviting all who would be inclined to actively be engaged. I feel that circle expand.

There is a danger in seeing things as they really. There is a real danger that, piece by piece, I might dismantle the culture surrounding me. There is a danger that, if I see the world as it really is, I might ignore, maybe even destroy all the limiting constraints that would otherwise confine me.

The fabric of a self-perpetuating society has covered and attempted to disguise the naked reality of the world. For its own purposes, my culture has altered the appearance of many things so that is hard for me to see things as they really are. All the human-made fabrications and alterations attempt to obscure the natural beauty of what exists without human intervention. There is a danger that I might fling aside these self-glorifying enhancements and embrace the naked realities.

Humans have built temples to a reflection of themselves and called them holy. The temples themselves have become cultural objects of adulation, and have directed the gaze of their acolytes to an imagined universe. All the while, the real universe has been underfoot and ignored. There is a danger that the temples will crumble and become insignificant as I direct my attention more to what is truly real. There is a danger that the edifice and walls of human culture will dissolve.

There was a time when humans had a deeper sense of realty and were engaged with the sacred world in which they lived. Religion itself, as it has developed in the last several millennia, has directed attention elsewhere from the vibrant reality in which I now choose to live. Cultures have projected images of themselves, real or imagined, and declared those reflections real. All the while, cultures have lost touch with the real world they left behind or ignored.

There is a danger for me in seeking what is real. There is a danger that the aspects of culture I carefully dismantle will leave me with little surrounding support.

Perhaps at that time, I will simply walk in my garden. Perhaps that will be enough and the danger will pass. I will walk through what I truly sense as real. Perhaps, there will be companions to walk with me. Perhaps the danger may not be so threatening after all.